MESCLADIS
Colab Quarter theme: Migrations
Values: Intercultural opening
Skills: memory work, refugee reception, social and professional integration
Experiments: Photographic Projects in the public space, Restauration
Fields: Social and economic integration
Disciplines: Photography, comics, urban art
Projects: Social and cultural project through the transmedia tool
Mescladis is a non-profit social project developed by Fundacion Cultural Mescladis, which is a structure resulting from the social and solidarity economy acting on the Ribera district in Barcelona. Mescladis focuses on dialogue between communities using art, and especially photography, as mediator. For this, the association is initiating projects where initiatives are vectors of social cohesion and where economic initiatives facilitate social and professional integration.
The projects carried out in Mescladis, through education and culture, aim to promote mutual understanding between the different cultures present in Barcelona. Via social economy projects, Mescladis strives to create jobs in the labor market. In parallel, some programs developed with Mescladis, help to support migrants by setting up a training curriculum targeting areas of need.
The foundation has also developed an activity around intercultural cooking workshops, which promotes meetings between migrants and locals. The revenues from the foundation come from the restoration service and on the other hand, by various public and private subsidies:
La Caixa Foundation, Municipality of Barcelona, Secretary of Immigration of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Caritas Foundation, etc.
Over the last 10 years, Mescladis has developed several integration initiatives, social dialogue and intercultural dialogue such as the program of “La Cuisine Solidaire”, the “Kitchen Integration” urban program Opportunities “and the” Migratory Dialogues “territorial development project. “Invisible Dialogues” is the last chapter of the development program cultural center “Migrant Dialogues”. It aims to highlight the problems encountered by undocumented migrants in society. “Migrant Dialogues” is a local development and social art tool that uses photography and video to approach migration from both a historical and a contemporary perspective. The aim is to strengthen social ties and contribute to social cohesion at the local level. “Invisible Dialogues” is one of the projects developed within this framework. It unfolds in a district of central Barcelona called Ribera del Born.
One of the latest actions developed in the context of Invisible Dialogues is “Novelas Graphicas” who uses comics as a medium. Several authors tell the story of several migrants arriving in Barcelona and Mescladis wishes to develop the project which spreads their message to reach a wide public and raise awareness of migrant trajectories. Also, the Migrant Dialogues project and in particular “Encajados” is declined in the United Kingdom, becoming an exportable model of intervention that can be tested in European different realities.
